Eric Bickel: Kirk Cousins Was ‘Disingenuous… He’s Dead To Me’

If any fan were to feel crestfallen over the Redskins moving on from Kirk Cousins, one would figure Eric Bickel of The Sports Junkies to be the one.

But he wasn’t (and isn’t).

Bickel is the most impassioned Redskins fan I’ve come to know, to the extent that, during the lean years between the end of the RGIII era and the beginning of the Redskins becoming “Kirk’s team,” it saddened me to see him so emotionally checked out. He didn’t want to get hurt. That much was obvious. Any search for the pulse of Redskins fandom has been short-lived — EB’s possessed it, every single time.

For these reasons, I anxiously awaited how Bickel would process the trade for Alex Smith, which effectively stopped the Cousins Era dead in its tracks.

I wanted Skins to keep Kirk. I think he's better than all the current alternatives including Alex Smith & any rookie. Still Im so thankful hes gone & we don't have to talk about him anymore. He became a toxic topic. People hated hearing his name. Even some supporters were done.

By Friday morning, more than two whole days after the blockbuster deal, Bickel seemed completely over it.

Surprisingly, he’d even started to turn on Cousins. Not, like, emotionally. As in, he now views Cousins as “a disingenuous douche.”

JP: So since the Redskins made the deal for Alex Smith, EB said he’s pretty much done with Kirk Cousins. I believe you even called him a weasel at one point.

EB: A little bit.

JP: Because you wanted him basically to come out with that full-page ad saying thank you to the fans.

EB: Well, I know that that’ll come eventually, but I also… he was basically disingenuous the entire time, publicly, by kind of acting like there was a chance. And a lot of people, you guys I guess all saw it.

JP: I guess you fell for it.

Lurch: I was gonna say, you bought into that. We kept saying he’s just saying the right things.

JP: Politician. Right.

EB: Correct. I admit it.

JP: You got all hyped because said something about Josh Doctson in the future.

EB: Yeah. He said a lot of the right things, I thought, but there’s a part of me that thinks he’s a disingenuous douche. There’s another part of me that says I would never sign long-term with Bruce Allen either, especially if I had someone who’s gonna give me even more money.

Lurch: Right. So how can you blame him?

EB: I don’t.

JP: He never could have said, ‘You know what? Deep down I really want to leave. I can’t wait until I can finally leave this horrible franchise.’

After listening to a TMZ interview in which Cousins said more of all the right things about the Redskins organization, The Junkies responded with their own commentary.

JP: So he’s saying the right things.

EB: Eh.

Cakes: He always says the right things. He’s great in the mic.

EB: He’s dead to me.

Lurch: C’mon…

EB: I don’t really care about him. I’m a bigger Redskins fan than I am a Kirk Cousins fan.

Lurch: No, I get it. But you act like he’s a bad guy.

EB: He’s not a bad guy. He’s not a bad guy. He was definitely disingenuous.

EB went on to say he’s not rooting against Cousins, but “he’s just dead to me in the sense that I’m now locked in on Alex. He’s my new boy-toy, and now I hope that he performs at a level like he did last year.”

“I hope that Kirk wins a Super Bowl next year and that Alex Smith flops,” Cakes said. “It just reinforces that the Redskins front office is a bunch of buffoons.”

Earlier in the broadcast, EB described feeling that, in hindsight, Cousins seemed “hellbent on leaving” Washington.

EB: I’m totally fine on the deal. It really reinforces that I’m a Skins fan, not a particular player fan, because I’m turning on Kirk. Now, I don’t believe Alex has said anything, but certainly neither has Kirk. And I know the deal’s not official yet — and it can’t be official until whatever dumb date it is. What is it, March something?

Cakes: March 14, I think.

EB: I mean, that’s a long time we’ve got to wait. I feel like Kirk in particular should have released a statement saying…

Cakes: Well, I’m sure he’s been instructed by his agent.

“But Alex Smith wasn’t hellbent on leaving,” EB went on to say. “Kirk was hellbent on leaving. That’s painfully obvious.”

“I have a big-time jilted lover complex over here. Big time,” he said. “Big time, because I defended him for years. I wanted them to keep him. And I just feel like that kid is doing cartwheels that they pulled off this [deal]. That’s the sense I’m getting. I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s bothering me.”

“I was neutral on the trade at the time,” he said. “I think I’m still neutral, but whatever.

“I can tell you this: I’m over Kirk, because I really felt like he could have found an agreement here, but he just obviously didn’t want to. He obviously didn’t want to be here. And that kind of irks me. I feel like a jilted lover.”

“I don’t think that [Jay Gruden] was a big reason to stay,” he later added. “Like, Jay was never a huge endorser of Kirk, so that probably irked him a little bit. But I believe deep, deep, deep down, the number one reason why Kirk didn’t want to be here is Bruce Allen.”

“And I don’t blame him,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to hitch my wagon to that loser either. So I do get it. I don’t mean to be hypocritical. I do get it, but I do feel like a jilted lover as a fan of the team. But I would never want to sign a long-term deal with Bruce Allen.”